It’s easy to pick out the best team from Brian Kelly’s first five years at Notre Dame. The second five years? That’s where things get more difficult.
He’s had four teams win at least 10 games in the last five seasons. That’s five 10+ win seasons in the last decade for Kelly or three more than Bob Davie, Tyrone Willingham, and Charlie Weis put together in the previous 13 years.
At this point Kelly has had enough very good teams for there to be a debate about where they rank as the best he’s coached at Notre Dame. It’s something my friend Chris Wilson asked me about this weekend when talking about last year’s team. He asked if the 2019 team was possibly the fourth best of the last five years and there’s a legitimate argument that it is.
Who would have thought that would happen with an 11-win team under Brian Kelly?
I thought it would be fun to go through all of his 10+ win teams to determine which was his best. I added in some details on each and more context to help out as well.
2012 (12-1)
NFL Draft picks (starters): 14 over three drafts
Top-100 NFL picks (starters): Eight in 2013, 2014, and 2016. Two in the first round.
All-Americans/Award winners: Manti Te’o (multiple awards), Tyler Eifert (Mackey Award winner), Stephon Tuitt (2nd team)
Point differential vs Power 5 opponents: +126
SP+ and FEI ratings: 35th on offense and 6th on defense for SP+. 25th and 4th in FEI.
I recently watched this team in what was arguably the best win of the BK era against Oklahoma, but one thing that game made me realize is how different college football is today than it was back then. I think if they plopped this team in 2020, they would not come close to going undefeated.
But all they could do was win against the schedule they played against and they did that in the regular season. This was the highest ranked defense of the last decade according to SP+ and FEI so that’s a plus for this to the best of the five.
14 starters went in the NFL Draft as well, eight of them in the top-100, so there is no doubt that the talent level of this team was up there too. Te’o, Eifert, Tuitt, and Zack Martin are all on the All-BK team as well.
It’s really tough to ignore that this team lacked depth at a lot of spots, though. The weakest links on their team wouldn’t have started on any of these other teams. The fact that they only threw for 14 touchdowns all season (12 by Everett Golson) and they lacked any kind of explosive element in the passing game really hurts them as well as not having a nickel on defense.
This was a really good team and a fun one to root for, but I don’t think it might not even be the second best team for Kelly at Notre Dame despite going undefeated in the regular season. The way they were handled by Alabama is a factor as well. They are the second best team for Kelly at Notre Dame in my opinion.
2015 (10-3)
NFL Draft picks (starters): 11 over two drafts
Top-100 NFL picks (starters): Nine in 2016, 2017, and 2018. Four in the first round.
All-Americans/Award winners: Jaylon Smith (1st team), Ronnie Stanley (1st team), Will Fuller (2nd team), Sheldon Day (2nd team)
Point differential vs Power 5 opponents: +76
SP+ and FEI ratings: 6th on offense and 29th on defense for SP+. 8th and 58th in FEI.
The top-end talent on this team deserved better. Nine top-100 picks in the NFL Draft! An offensive line that had three top-10 picks on it and a fourth player who was selected in the 2nd round. They were explosive running and passing (3rd in IsoPPP+) with CJ Prosise, a young Josh Adams, and the always electric Will Fuller.
Sheldon Day had the most tackles for loss (15.5) by any player in the last decade and Jaylon Smith was maybe the best linebacker for the Irish in the last 30 years.
DeShone Kizer was a quality player at quarterback and a way better dual threat than people gave him credit for, even if his pocket awareness was not spectacular. He still was the quarterback for the best offense of the BK era and that does matter.
They lost two regular season games against Clemson and Stanford by a combined four points and those teams won a combined 26 games. In many other years, this Notre Dame team would have gone undefeated.
Now here’s where it comes back down to earth. Despite those close losses, the point differential wasn’t great. They weren’t blowing teams out and that was primarily because of one side of the ball.
The defense was...not good. I’m not sure how SP+ had them rated 29th when they gave up so many big plays (85th in plays given up 30 yards or longer). They lacked quality down the middle with youth at nose tackle and weren’t strong at Mike linebacker or safety. The coordinator didn’t help things either and the team really struggled to get after the quarterback.
If this team had a different DC and the kind of depth the defense at Notre Dame has now, this could have been the best team for Kelly and a true national title contender. In hindsight this was a fun team, but not nearly good enough to be considered at the top. I have them third.
2017 (10-3)
NFL Draft picks: 10 over two drafts.
Top-100 NFL picks: 3 in 2018 and 2019, all three in the first round.
All-Americans/Award winners: Quenton Nelson (1st team) and Mike McGlinchey (1st team), Julian Love (2nd team)
Point differential vs Power 5 opponents: +90
SP+ and FEI ratings: 19th on offense and 15th on defense for SP+. 13th and 11th for FEI.
Looking at the roster, this team was loaded with great players. Not all of them had emerged at the time, though. Some of them probably deserved more of a chance to emerge and were stuck behind inferior talent.
Nelson and McGlinchey were fantastic and paved the way for a top-four running game according to SP+ and yards per carry. The combination of Josh Adams and Brandon Wimbush running the ball led to them being tied for the most 30+ yard runs in the country.
The defense probably doesn’t get the credit they deserve. It lacked in terms of pass rush, but a lot of the stars of the 2018 defense were rising up a level in 2017. Top-15 in both SP+ and FEI is no joke either. Mike Elko left many Notre Dame fans unhappy when he left, but he turned a bad defense into a good one pretty quickly.
That blowout loss to Miami is a stench that won’t go away, though. The quarterback play with Wimbush, specifically late in the year, was not good too.
It was a good team, but a flawed one. This group is fifth on my list.
2018 (12-1)
NFL Draft picks: 6 in 2019 and potentially six more this year.
Top-100 NFL picks: Two in 2019, one in the first round. There are as many as four more that may go in the top-100 this year.
All-Americans/Award winners: Julian Love (1st team), Jerry Tillery (2nd team)
Point differential vs Power 5 opponents: +146
SP+ and FEI ratings: 33rd on offense and 10th on defense for SP+. 29th and 16th for FEI.
As time goes by, this team is going to look even more impressive. In particular the defense, which could end up with eight starters getting drafted, will stand the test of time in my opinion. That doesn’t even include Te’von Coney, who was a heck of a college linebacker.
It’s pretty close, but I think this was the best front seven of the last decade and if taking the secondary into account, this defense was more talented than the 2012 one even if statistically they weren’t as dominant.
The big difference between this team and 2012 is that they had an explosive back in Dexter Williams, better receivers in Miles Boykin and Chase Claypool, and a much better quarterback play with Ian Book. I think if Book and Williams played a full-season as starters, the statistical advantage would have been much greater on offense as well.
The overall depth of the team is another piece that puts it over the edge for me. This was Kelly’s best team.
2019 (11-2)
NFL Draft picks: TBD, but as many as six are projected to be selected this year.
Top-100 NFL picks: TBD, but as many as four are projected to be selected this year.
All-Americans/Award winners: none
Point differential vs Power 5 opponents: +109
SP+ and FEI rating: 20th on offense and 22nd on defense for SP+. 25th and 5th for FEI.
Obviously we won’t know about the draft picks for some time, but it’s pretty clear this was a talented team. The defense was fantastic as well, despite losing some studs from the 2018 team. Even injuries didn’t slow down the pass rush and it finished as the second best group during Kelly’s tenure according to FEI.
The offense missed a consistently explosive presence in the backfield, but the duo of Claypool and Cole Kmet are right behind Michael Floyd and Tyleir Eifert in 2011 in terms of the problems they presented for defense. Book had another good season at quarterback and the offense finished 13th in scoring, the best they have done under Kelly.
The Michigan game is a giant blackmark. That can’t be glossed over. Neither can the fact that heading into heading into the Duke game they were even with their scoring differential against Power 5 competition.
The close to the season was great and it was the best a team has played in November for Kelly while at Notre Dame, but it’s not enough to put them higher than they should be.
Final rankings:
1. 2018
2. 2012
3. 2015
4. 2019
5. 2017
